


Ghost

by Haishe



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, F/M, inner monologues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 13:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15752847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haishe/pseuds/Haishe
Summary: A short look into the rather unpleasant side of Touka's mind as she waited for Kaneki and Haise at :re





	Ghost

Was it right to love somebody that didn’t even know you? That probably doesn’t even remember you, let alone think about you?  
These questions plagued Touka’s every moment devoid of the distractions that she had surrounded herself with, the witticisms of Nishiki, the concern of Yomo, the scent of the coffee that had become more and more better with every neverending day.  
Could it be okay for her to love him? To love a ghost that no longer existed, a ghost, that perhaps never existed...  
Each day she would walk into the cafe she’d carry on her face the smile so utterly heartwarming and inviting that the most jaded of people, tired of life’s constant barrage of unrepentant horseshit would find something worthwhile in it, but just as it was encapsulating for others each moment her mouth was contorted felt of immense pain. How could she allow herself to fall so far?

Every Time he’d walk in through that door with his sesame pudding hair and colleagues shed be reminded of all the times Ken would come to the cafe after college, Hinami in toe, his face lit up while explaining an all to mundane book to Hinami who couldn't get enough of it. Why couldn't things just be simple again? Touka found herself asking that question often, only to remind herself time and time again that things were never simple. There were always things brewing underneath that shallow timid demeanour of his that he’d never share all for some misguided sense of protecting others. 

Things could never just be simple with a man like Kaneki, but even that fact didn't help lessen the blow of having the man you love look at you like he doesn't even know you. His eyes filled with the promise of possibility and excitement, but devoid of the things that they shared. Every Time he’d come into her shop shed have to meet eyes with a stranger who she wanted nothing more than to be with, a stranger who was no longer hers, and if she'd been honest, never had been. 

The world was a cruel, punishment place and it wasn't as if Touka, of all people, was unaware of the reality of their situation, but even after all of the realism, the thoughts of the greater good and sacrifices there was a niggling thought. A thought that would keep her awake at night, make her dig her nails into the palms of her hand until she could feel anything other than the morbid, unfeeling cold of her room. Why was she always left to wait for people who didn't want to come back? 

One night was particularly searing in its painful melancholic loneliness, she’d come home earlier seeing as work at the cafe was slower than usual. To her eventual regret she decided to clean out her closet, they had been a mess ever since shed moved into her new apartment and now was a good a time as any to get rid of things that she didn't really need, things that no one really cared about, actually. 

At first, it was the usual, older clothes that shed either forgotten about or were too old to be useful, some backup documents and ids that she’d had set up on Yoshimura's insistence, for a doddering old fool the man had some foresight after all. She found a pretty little green bracelet with a miniature clover emblem on it that Hinami had gifted her just shortly before she left. Just another thing to add to the pile of trinkets that people would leave behind in their wake. Through all of the cleaning and sorting a thought crept up, a thought that she tried valiantly to keep at bay but was always doomed to fail considering how much of an affinity she had for saving things that no one else wanted. 

Just as she was about to finish up, rather, moments before she was locking up her newly arranged closet her eyes fell on a small metal box with a latch on its front, it had been in eyeshot this entire time but she had tried oh so hard to ignore it. Ignore the light golden gleam that emanated from it and the scent of something hauntingly familiar that reminded her of things she would rather force herself to forget. 

She forced herself not to open it, shoving it under a pile of clothes she'd decided were too good for her day to day, she didn't want all of it to come rushing back, for something so simple to lead to more emotional turmoil than was seemly, after all, she had to keep her shit together right? Running the cafe, putting on a smile? Seeing him every other god damn day and being reminded of how he left her once before, how he couldn't open his eyes and see that people cared, that she fucking cared. He was always selfish, a self-absorbed masochist who'd rather have you beat him and torture him that love him because that would mean having to really care about other people rather than pretending to. 

Touka felt, in that moment, all of this rage, this rage that even she want aware was there spilling out from within, as she pulled back the box and tried opening it in a rush, her fingers spilling up again and again as she attempted to undo the latch, 

“Fuck!” she stopped her frantic clawing only to attempt a gentler approach, her hands trembling under the weight of her repressions as she tried desperately not to let the tears that had built up for longer than she care to admit come out. She couldn't waste any more tears when things were not going to get better when the people she loved didn't even care. There was no point in crying when all it would do is remind her how truly alone she was, not even to have someone to cry to, someone who'd wipe them away and tell her it was all going to be okay. 

She stopped, her fingers deadening in front of her as the box fell to the floor, the thud of its landing feeling like an anvil had fallen atop her head. 

“I hate you, Kaneki. I fucking hate you,” she told herself as the tips of her nails dug into her palms. She let escape a desperate laugh, a trick shed picked up from the man she hated more than anything. How pathetic was she was waste her tears on a ghost that would never come, and then as if this couldn't get any worse her mind reminded her of tired she was of this all, 

“I wish you really were dead,” Touka pleaded, her voice dripping in anguished abandon. 

“At Least that way, I'd actually have something to mourn and not something to delude myself with.”

Awareness was the greatest curse someone like her could have, to be aware of everything you are doing to hurt yourself but not being able to stop, not being able to let go. To be seen by others as some saintly, kind soul only to be the one truly aware of how truly wretched and clawing things can be underneath it all.

After all that of this she would still find herself hoping, like a battered old incorrigible fool. What was worse, to know that you're chasing a ghost, or to chase one all the same knowing that they aren't real. After all her life, Touka wanted to give herself this kindness, to allow herself to hope, but she knew that it wasn't as if it was an infinite resource, now all that was left to see was would you happen first, would she crumble or would the dead come back to the living and as insane as it seemed she accepted both, anything would be better than the interminable wait for joy and relief, even a definite loss and sorrow. 

It wasnt okay to love a ghost, but it was better than being reminded how truly alone it could feel in a world where nothing was hers.


End file.
